Prior art amphibious vehicles are designed as road vehicles that adapt to travel on relatively calm or protected waters. Although they may travel on water, they have many shortcomings when compared to similar sized boats. The present disclosure is directed at a “medium” size amphibious vehicle. “Medium” size herein refers to powered amphibious vehicles between 25 feet in length and the maximum length allowed by roadway standards for non-articulated trucks or buses, (typically 45 feet in length). Prior art vehicles are not designed or equipped for long distance, multi-day water travel, low visibility or rough water conditions nor do they have sufficient provisions to dock or moor. See the “Background of the Invention” section of U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,584 for a more detailed historic overview of prior art amphibious vehicles and their inherent design and performance flaws. An object of the present disclosure is to match or exceed the functionality, performance characteristics and accommodations of both a typical production 45 foot length V-Hull “Express Cruiser Yacht” type power boat and a production “Class A” Luxury Motor Home. It is also an object to improve upon prior art military amphibious vehicles of similar road legal, medium length. “Road legal” as used herein means when the vehicle is driven on US roadways, an escort vehicle is not required.
Smaller prior art amphibious vehicles have been intended mostly as a novelty and have the carrying capacity, shape and proportions of automobiles or small pickup trucks with boat-like bottoms and a low freeboard. Medium size, amphibious vehicles are typically intended for military use, as tour buses for water and land tours, or as a combination RV/house boats. All medium sized prior art wheeled amphibious vehicles (wheeled meaning in land mode they travel on wheels as opposed to tank treads or air cushions like hovercraft) are designed for short distance water travel at speeds of less than 10 miles per hour and do not attempt to match performance or functional characteristics of similar size power boats. The present disclosure describes the first sea-going, wheeled amphibious vessel or vehicle that may attain significantly higher water speeds than any prior art medium size, road legal, amphibious vessel or vehicle.